{"id":39212,"date":"2026-08-11T19:57:47","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T14:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=39212"},"modified":"2026-08-11T19:57:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T14:57:47","slug":"cnns-donie-osullivan-doesnt-fret-over-platforming-extremists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=39212","title":{"rendered":"CNN&#8217;s Donie O&#8217;Sullivan Doesn&#8217;t Fret Over Platforming Extremists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tYou\u2019ve got to be either a saint or a masochist \u2014 maybe a little of both \u2014 to try to explain American partisans these days. Seek out figures on the far left or far right, after all, and you\u2019ll get either criticism for snarking (from that side) or blowback for platforming (from the other side).<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tOf course such work is essential at a moment when too many of us listen only to our allies. That\u2019s where the sainthood comes in.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAll of this forms the unique, admirable and I-still-wouldn\u2019t-want-to-be-him professional role of Donie O\u2019Sullivan, the Millennial <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/cnn\/\" id=\"auto-tag_cnn_1\" data-tag=\"cnn\">CNN<\/a> reporter who travels around the county earnestly-wryly talking to hardcore figures on all sides, who have a noticeable tendency to open up to him. (That recently included an hourlong<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/donie\/status\/2083180468745162861\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0Hasan Piker-focused special\u00a0<\/a>on the Democrats\u2019 insurgent left and a shorter package this week on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/videos\/title-2600707\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Minnesota gubernatorial candidacy of MAGA hero Mike Lindell<\/a>\u00a0on the Trumpian right.) In a time of echo chambers, O\u2019Sullivan is both anomaly and antidote. He\u2019s also a legacy journalist in an influencer world, its own Rubik\u2019s Cube.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAs an intense primary season comes down the homestretch \u2014 key races testing the far left and far right unfold both in Minnesota and Wisconsin Tuesday \u2014 O\u2019Sullivan seems particularly well-positioned to document where he thinks the country is going. Not to mention describe what it\u2019s like to hurl yourself into the spray with every segment. So <em>The Hollywood Reporter<\/em> hopped on a Zoom with the Ireland-born journalist to ask how he thinks America is doing, and what it\u2019s doing to him.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>You\u2019ve covered extremism for a whole bunch of years now. How much more extreme is it in 2026?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tI have been covering the fringe for a long time, and what strikes me as we head into the midterms is what was considered fringe on the left and right is now often part of a prominent debate in both parties. On the right you see what Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene are doing, mounting an insurgency of their own. And you have that on the left too, which we\u2019ve seen in some of the primary races. But I also think we have to be careful not to make a false equivalency between the parties. I often see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/hasan-piker\/\" id=\"auto-tag_hasan-piker_1\" data-tag=\"hasan-piker\">Hasan Piker<\/a> in the same breath as Nick Fuentes and people who do that aren\u2019t taking the time to listen to either. A lot of speech on the far right is motivated by blatant antisemitism. Fuentes is saying Jews = bad. Endlessly. Unapologetically. If you listen to Piker he makes the point that \u2018I\u2019m not antisemitic I\u2019m anti-Zionist.\u2019 Some will argue the effect is the same. But I find fringes on the left really go to great lengths to try and separate Jews and Judaism from Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Certainly both sides do seem to be capitalizing on the same sense of disaffection with government<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThat\u2019s what\u2019s so striking \u2014 the similarities. I spend a lot of time talking to people on the left and spend a lot of time on the manosphere and in both feel people like the system is not working and want to do something about it. A lot has been exacerbated by feeling alone and on social media; that\u2019s something I feel very there-but-for-the-grace-of-God about too, by the way. We\u2019re up against trillion-dollar industries of algorithms and so it\u2019s easy to fall into rabbit holes, whether it\u2019s a conspiracy theory or just outrage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>You\u2019ve seen that up close so many times \u2014 what\u2019s an example of where that rabbit-holing really turned ugly, in your opinion?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tA lot of young people think that what Luigi Mangione is alleged to have done is not that bad. An innocent man was assassinated walking in the streets of New York, and so it can be hard to understand that. But we should talk to those young people and find out why they don\u2019t think it\u2019s bad. Don\u2019t let being offended by someone\u2019s opinion stop you from talking to them. Because their opinion is not going to change. And I\u2019m personally not interested in changing anyone\u2019s opinion. But I\u2019m a believer in hearing things and sharing things. I even think that about January 6 \u2014 there was a lot of disillusion and disaffection. Vigilante justice is not what we should be dong of course. But we should listen to why people feel the need for it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Do you get how some people can see that as problematic? That there is a legitimizing effect when you have someone with outlandish theories or dangerous grievances on CNN?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThat\u2019s one of the biggest question on my beat, the platforming. And there are certainly cases where we don\u2019t want to just amplify. But the mainstream media is no longer the gatekeeper of information, which means that a Hasan Piker or a Tucker Carlson have millions of people listening to them already. And the question is whether we can be part of the conversation beyond soundbites or just sit it out and do a disservice to audiences. I\u2019ll choose the conversation. We also have the resources to fact-check these spaces, and I think that gives us a responsibility to cover them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Do you think that makes a difference for all the people down the hole? Not rhetorical \u2014 genuinely asking.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tI\u2019m overwhelmingly pessimistic. But I do see an opportunity where journalism can shine if we adapt. We did an episode on someone who went down the rabbit hole, a liberal woman in the Bay Area. And it started with concerns about vaccines and soon she got pulled into homophobia and transphobia and racism and antisemitism. All kinds of horrific things. And she came out of it, and realized so much of what she was thinking about vaccines was colored through this terrible lens. So I think it can happen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Your job is listening to people you don\u2019t agree with. It\u2019s not a role most people in this country seek out. What makes you do it?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe thing I\u2019m most interested in in the world is having those difficult conversations. That\u2019s what\u2019s going to get us out of the dark situation we\u2019re in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>You undertake this job at great risk to yourself. I know most journalists don\u2019t want to be the story but the threats you get online are pretty eye-popping. Does it ever get easier? Do you still get scared?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tI like to think I\u2019m calm about it but this is easier said than done. The first time the full Twitter mob is on you it\u2019s very scary. There\u2019s doxxing, among many other things. I\u2019m definitely in a space now where I\u2019m fine with it. I speak to young journalists sometimes and my advice is that hate on social media is just part of the job now. I wouldn\u2019t suggest anyone getting this business if they want to do impactful reporting and think that won\u2019t be there. Not just covering extremism \u2014 covering anything.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Do any coping techniques help? Besides touching grass.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t[Laughing] That definitely helps. Just getting offline. But a lot of it is I keep a point of being in touch with a lot of the subjects of our stories. Not everybody is happy of course but I do hear a lot that I was fair to them and that helps a lot. I want to be fair to them even if they\u2019re not always going to be fair to us.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>It does seem like a can\u2019t-win situation \u2014 someone will always be mad. Which I know people say means you\u2019re doing your job right but it also means that you\u2019re doing your job unhappily?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe stuff I get in the most trouble on the internet is the stuff that in a way is most important. With this episode on the insurgent left we spoke to Hasan Piker and we spoke to James Carville. Just a really big story. And of course\u00a0part of the left attacked me for speaking to Piker at all, and then people attacked me for speaking to Carville at all. They\u2019d even cut up clips so that it looked like we were<em>\u00a0only\u00a0<\/em>talking to them. But we worked really hard to give everyone a hearing. [Ed note: Piker, at least, was happy with the segment,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Nkdp5u1un6o\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">telling\u00a0<\/a>his livestreaming audience as he watched the special, \u201cDonie\u2019s the man. The Irish guy. He\u2019s very cool, in spite of the fact that he\u2019s at CNN.\u201d] And that\u2019s something we should be doing more of, as a profession, giving everyone a hearing; that\u2019s the job of a journalist. To get beyond the tables in New York and DC and the Acela car to hear what a lot of different people think.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>One proof of that is Lindell. Not someone whose election conspiracy theories I or many of us agree with. And yet I came away from your segment kind of liking the guy, someone who has a great backstory as a former addict who pulled himself up by his bootstraps and genuinely seems affable. You can almost forget all the dangerous stuff he\u2019s spouting to Donald Trump\u2019s glee. But of course we\u00a0<em>shouldn\u2019t<\/em>\u00a0forget that, especially as he stands a good chance today of becoming the\u00a0Republican\u00a0nominee for governor of Minnesota.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tLindell is a very likable person and I do think unlike a lot of the MAGA guys who don\u2019t believe the shit they\u2019re saying he truly does believe what he\u2019s saying. But is also doing a lot of dangerous and frankly dumb stuff. But the goal is to understand people. Someone on social media will say \u2018why are you humanizing this person?\u2019 To which my response is \u2019they\u2019re human.\u2019 And dehumanizations are the reason we\u2019re in such bad shape today.\u00a0I haven\u2019t had the opportunity to interview Nick Fuentes one-on-one yet but from the unguarded moments I\u2019ve seen he\u2019s a terribly insecure, sad Gen Z person and we should show that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Is that the end goal then? Understanding not just the ideology but the humans behind it?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tI think the goal is helping us run a society. Our job as a country is to change the [feeling of disaffection] and give people a system of government that actually feels like it\u2019s doing someone for them. That makes them become engaged instead of just cheering on violence. That\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to do on-air.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>And that makes them feel like the other side is not out to get them<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tTotally. You know, one thing that comes up a lot is the viewers who disagree with who I\u2019m interviewing will say \u2018you made someone look like a fool\u2019 and then viewers who agree say \u2018he sounds smart.\u2019 Their reactions can \u00a0say a lot more about them than they do the subject.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>What about from the subjects themselves \u00a0\u2014\u00a0you\u00a0say they feel you\u2019re fair but you do challenge them in the moment and you certainly do in the voiceover later. Plus there\u2019s the fact that you\u2019re from CNN. Do you get a lot of pushback from them?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tI think a lot of people want to be heard and want to talk. I\u2019ve interviewed supporters of election-denial claims who say \u2018I don\u2019t agree with you but thank you for having the conversation with me.\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>How do all your reporting excursions leave you feeling about our prospects as a functional society? Is there hope for reconciliation or not really? Do people\u00a0<em>want<\/em>\u00a0nuance?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tI think we\u2019re in a bit of trouble. [Gives a knowing-bitter laugh]. \u00a0But I think people do want nuance. You\u2019ve seen that with the success of podcasters like Joe Rogan or Lex Fridman. People will listen to hours of a discussion. Rogan is so meta \u2014 he\u2019ll go back to ancient civilizations and then even talk about alien civilizations. And so many other podcasts too. A lot of the conversations are dumb and uninformed, yes. But there\u2019s still an appetite.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>But that\u2019s a form of algorithmic engagement too, isn\u2019t it, following one singular leader because he knows how to press the conspiracy-theory button or get us outraged?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tI think that\u2019s right but what this interest also shows is that there\u2019s a huge opportunity for journalists to have these longform conversations too. Because a news organization that comes in to take advantage of this [appetite] has also done their research and anticipated questions and is preparing for pushback.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>You\u2019re more optimistic than I am that what people want is fact-based, clarity-minded journalism. It feels to me too often that it\u2019s more attractive for people to get mad and reductive.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThat\u2019s the challenge of a big outlet: how do we create stuff that\u2019s compelling and gives the space to have these conversations and maybe even can go viral, but isn\u2019t conspiracy theory or just tawdry. I don\u2019t know that we can completely avoid all of that. But I think we can get closer. It\u2019s all a question of quantity. We don\u2019t do a story [on extremists] every single day, nor should we. But also when we discuss these things, let\u2019s really discuss them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Give me a prediction on where this all goes, particularly on the left. Are we really witnessing a sea change? Or is this something that rhymes more with 2018, where there\u2019s a Democratic insurgency midway through Trump\u2019s term and then it dies down two years later when he\u2019s gone from office.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe big difference between now and 2018 is that the left has a massive independent media and infrastructure that keeps getting bigger. <em>Pod Save America <\/em>and Hasan Piker and everything in-between. The MAGA-verse has had this kind of scale for a decade, and look at what it did for them. Now the left has it. I think two years from now when we\u2019re in the middle of presidential debates the effect will be huge. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s settling anytime soon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You\u2019ve got to be either a saint or a masochist \u2014 maybe a little of both \u2014 to try to explain American partisans these days. Seek out figures on the far left or far right, after all, and you\u2019ll get either criticism for snarking (from that side) or blowback for platforming (from the other side)&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/DonieOCNN.jpg?w=1440&h=810&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}